The 2012 Major League Gaming Pro Circuit comes to New York this weekend with the Winter Arena tournament . 32 Starcraft 2 players will compete for a total prize purse of $26,000 divided among the top eight finishers. The top sixteen finishers will be invited to compete in the Winter Championship in Columbus, Ohio from March 23 - 25.

You can purchase access to the streams at Justin.tv . The events air live, starting on Friday at 6 pm Eastern. You can test-drive the stream format and get an idea of what $20 gets you at this demo page . All the matches will eventually be available on demand for free, albeit a week after the tournament.

The Winter Arena features competitors like MC, Idra, Huk, MVP, Nestea, and MarineKing. The streams will be cast by Tasteless, Artosis, DJWheat, Rob Simpson, JP McDaniel, Adebisi, Tumba, and Robin.

For those of you who follow eSports, how do you feel about MLG's approach to the Winter Arena and its Pro Circuit? Charging $20 for pay-per-view access to the event was a controversial move, and I'm curious how much of that is just resistance to change, and how much of that is a genuine feeling that this is the wrong direction to take the MLG.